Naomi Hansen celelbrated her podium early with some extra carbs on the final lap.

The Grindin Gearz Mount Perry Gold Rush has a reputation of being a fantastic weekend of racing and fun, tucked away somewhere in Queensland north of Maryborough and south of Rockhampton. Anna Beck packed up the tent, boiled up some race-eve pasta and found out just how dusty and delirious one rider can get after 6 hours in the saddle.

Hundreds of families camped at the Wolca Reserve race site, located a few kilometres out of the township of Mt Perry, and with a festival-like feel the fun and games began. Saturday evening saw the running of the Dirt Dash events—women, sport men, elite men and kids races into the evening lit up the short criterium-style dirt course around the campsite. With most categories competing in the twilight hours, in the dark of night the headlights of the elite men’s field blurred past us like a freight train. Aiden ‘Leffmaburger’ Lefmann won the dash for cash, followed by Andy ‘AyUp’ Fellows and Glenn ‘White-pants’ Stewart.

The next morning saw the start of the main event—six hours of racing on a gruelling yet rewarding 11-point-something kilometre course. The descents really made up for all that climbing, and because the descending was in the final stages of each lap, it tricked you into thinking that the climbing wasn’t really that hard. One you rode through transition again, and headed up that first hill, you began to remember all the pain of the previous laps! But by that time it was too late…you were already looking forward to those fast, loose, rutted descents that had you “Yeooow”-ing lap after lap.

With 6 hrs to test your skills, it's not worth getting too frantic on the start lap.

As with most endurance-format events, elite riders battled it out amongst novice riders, solo riders rode alongside teams and I didn’t hear a bad word spoken on course (except for my own swearing under my breath). This was possibly because by about three-hours in I was partially cross-eyed and oblivious to everything around me. But that’s endurance racing to a tee!

Fellows and Benson kept an eye on each other's form.

In the men’s field, whippersnapper Aaron Benson took the solo win in 12 laps, followed by Andy Fellows and the comeback king—Jeff Toohey— both on 11 laps.

In the women’s field, the front-runner from the outset, endurance-bunny Naomi Hansen, had a strong lead until the final stages in the race, when Jodie Willett proved too strong. The women’s results ended up with Jodie taking the win, followed by Naomi with Anna Beck in third, all on 10 laps.

For the overall, male pairs Aido Leffman and Glenn Stewart showed us all how it was done, lapping the field on 13 laps. Awesome effort!

Hayden Lester learned more about the difference tyres make the to the trails than he was hoping to.

The weekend was one of those trips out of town that have you smiling in your day job for weeks to come.  The guys at Grindin Gearz got the mix just right—the showers, canteen, coffee vans and  family atmosphere attracted well over 300 competitors, which was amazing considering how far from anywhere Mt Perry is!  If you have the chance to race this awesome event in the future, snap it up.  With a bit more training, next year I hope to save the cross-eyed riding for the finish line (plus or minus the beer lap)!

More info can be found at www.mtbgoldrush.com

Thank you to David Pattinson for the photos.

…Or at least that’s what we were thinking once the day warmed up!  As the third round of the SRAM Singletrack Mind Series kicked off at Yellowmundee in the Lower Blue Mountains we were out there, with double sets of gloves on, watching our breath make patterns in the air and hoping like crazy we could still hold on to the brakes once we hit the fast, flowy descents!

Andrew Arthur proved that smiling makes you fast.

Jade Hancock came 4th in the Solo Women

After an opening piece of singeltrack to check in on your loose cornering skills, riders went straight into a hill climb that was just long enough to warm the body up and make you curse your lack of winter riding fitness not long before you crested the top.  After that, thoughts of the winter chill (and the warmth of the couch) were cast aside and and it was time to rail the fun stuff!  Or at least, almost rail it:

Oops! That wasn't in the game plan!

The 7 hour format made for some tight racing.  Yeti/Gu’s Matt Potter and Paul Rowney took out the overall win on 15 laps.  Jon Odams edged out 3 other riders all on 14 laps for the Solo Men’s title and Vanina Vergoz pedalled into the front of the Solo Ladies’ race at the beginning of the day and never looked back.

Olympian and multiple National Champion, Paul Rowney punched out some hot laps on a sweet Yeti rig that had other riders drooling at transition (or was that drool just from trying to catch him?).

Jon Odams looked strong all day

Clydesdale category entrants had to register their bike and rider weight before the race began, with the winner being he or she that had the highest point value when laps completed were multiplied by weight.  This added an exciting element to the event as it was never clear who was in the lead until the end.  Trent Moore took the honours with 1214.4 points. We’ll let you do the maths!

3rd place Clydesdale, Ben Berghauser had five times the calf strength of an ordinary man.

The next round of the series heads to Stromlo Forest Park in Canberra.  We’re looking forward to more exciting riding and watching a few of the solo lads and ladies test their race strategies ahead of the Solo 24 Hour Champs.  We’d like to think that arm warmers will be enough once more, but might pack a few extra layers just in case!

For more info check out www.chocolatefoot.com.au, unless you want to see the race video, in which case you should click this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjKM52QHtJ0

Thanks again to Dave Bateman for the great race shots.  www.davebatemanphoto.com

Two years in the making, and one of the most anticipated new races in the ACT region, the 50 and 100km Capital Punishment courses were designed to take in most of the singletrack Canberra has to offer: Kowen, Majura, Stromlo, and only a smattering of tarmac in between.  Unfortunately for race organisers and competitors, on this occasion more tarmac would have been a blessing!

Of the 2000 entrants signed up to tackle the event on May 29, 75% threw on their rain jackets, pulled out their best bottle of wet lube and fronted up the start line ready to see what the weather gods had done to the track. The other 25% saved their rainy race enthusiasm for another day.

One week after the event, horror stories are still rolling in, but we’re also hearing increasing amounts of laughter about  how fun it can be to ride in the mud as well (and how good the rum balls were at the 60km feed station).   Jason English suffered in the conditions for the shortest amount of time taking out the win in 4 hours and 35 minutes.  Heather Logie was the first woman through in 5 hours and 25 minutes.

Last we heard, bike shops in Canberra are clean out of brake pads until further notice.  Some riders even wore through the backing plates and into the pistons!

Check out www.arocsport.com.au/MTB_Capital/mtb_capital_home for more info and results.

Photos courtesy of Aurora Images: www.auroraimages.com.au

The first round of Victoria’s ‘Chase the Sun’ series was held on Sunday, May 30.  Our Editor, Mikk Godfree, rugged up in his snazzy winter lycra and headed out to the party to bring us the scoop.

AJ carved out a 9 minute gap to Peter Kutschera to take out the solo category, sliding in in a time of 4 hours 52 for the 8 laps

I like these Chase the Sun races a lot. First of all, they take about 45 minutes to drive to.  Second, they are always well catered (I wonder if Mike from Soulkitchen will be knighted one day). Third, Lysterfield has some great tracks which have come a long way from the Commonwealth Games track highway.

When I think of chasing the sun, I think of “endless summer”, of packing bikes and heading north for the middle of the calendar year. Full Gas Promotions have a very different idea and no one signs up for these races expected to pack the sun cream.

Round one of the series was a hit with entries selling out well before the race and over 200 hundred requests for late entries being knocked back.  Numbers of entries can often be misleading as to how good a race was, but not on this occasion. Sunday was a big hit with overcast conditions never breaking to rain or even drizzle and numbers in the low-teens on the thermometer keeping temperatures just a tad below ideal (but pretty good for the second last day of autumn.

Jenny King is a new addition to the Torq Team and she and Kathryn O'Shea took out the Pro Females category

On paper the 13km lap looked a little dull with nearly 2km of fire-road all in one section along the back part of the course. The reality however, was much different with nearly every other metre of the course packed with fun singletrack or sketchy and fast doubletrack.

And with about 275 metres of climbing per lap, it was far from an easy course (however no climb was very long so the metres were gained relatively painlessly). This meant that the top six in the solo men category climbed  about 2200 metres in their 8 laps – impressive!

In the solo category, superstar AJ polished off 8 laps in 4 hours 52 minutes while Peter Kutschera was only 9 minutes behind with Andrew “have a lingering cold but still will try to put it to AJ” Bell taking out third 7 minutes further back. The solo category was well attended with over 60 men competing (and another 25 or so in over 40s).

In the solo women category, Anne Antrecht put together a very solid 7 laps in 5 hours 15 while Jojo Williams used her home-track knowledge to smash out 6 laps in 4 hours 40 before sitting down for a cuppa.

Anne Anntrecht has been racing incredibly consistently of late

The real excitement was played out in the Pro Male Pairs category with a sprint finish for the win taken out by Daniel Braunsteins (Drapac Porsche, who was riding with Cal Britten – Swell-Redshift racing) over Robbie Hucker (Torq, who was racing with teammate Brenton Jones).  The boys clocked 10 laps (over 130km!) in 5 hours 29 and were separated by 2 seconds at the end, only 6 minutes up on the pair of Ben Randall and Steele Von Hoff

Cal Britten, one half of the winning Pro Male Pairs team

In the Pro Females, Katherine O’Shea and Jen King clocked up 8 laps in 5 hours 25, 11 minutes up on Nicci Jeffries and Amity Czechowski while, Jess Douglass and Brad Davies took out mixed pairs with 8 laps.

After an early off Brad Davies lapped quickly with teammate Jess Douglas to take out Mixed Pairs

The track help up amazingly well with the numbers and the smattering of rain during the week and we can only hope for such a good track, good conditions and great vibe for round 2 in July – enter now to avoid disappointment!

Mark Fenner in his new colours riding for Torq onboard his CUBE

More info from www.fullgaspromotions.com.au/Chase-The-Sun/chase-the-sun

Thank you to Adam MacLeod for the photos.